“She asked you a question, you know,” K’kaen said.
“It's fine,” she interjected before S’samph had a chance to respond. Her hands were quick as she removed the old bandage. It was stillincredibly painful, but he did his best to keep a straight face. “That must hurt.” She was gentle and decisive in her motions as she sprayed the wound with some sort of antiseptic.
“This is going to sting. It’s a booster to speed the healing.” Eleri produced a long needle and tapped it a few times to remove the air before injecting it straight into the wounded area of his shoulder.
“It wasn’t so bad,” S’samph lied. The sharp jerk of his tail betrayed the truth, but if Eleri understood the meaning, she didn’t comment. K’kaen was not so tactful. He tapped Eleri on her shoulder and gestured to the obvious motion.
“Look at his tail. He’s lying through his teeth.”
“Oh! If it hurt, you should have said something.” She started to dig through her medkit and produced three small vials of medicine. “This is a painkiller. It’s not perfect, but it’ll make the intensity go down by about half.” She handed one to him and the other two to K’kaen. “It’s non-addictive, but you can hold onto these for him. Make sure he takes them. One dose every twelve standard hours.” Eleri stared at him expectantly.
“I’ll take it later if I need it,” S’samph said. Eleri’s eyes did something strange, rolling around in a quick, unexpected motion which must have been shocking to her because then she clasped her hands over her mouth.
“Stars, that was rude,” she whispered in conversation with herself more than either him or K’kaen.
“Do it again,” S’samph murmured as he found himself reaching for her face. Eleri startled away from the unexpected touch, but his hand was steady on the side of her face. Her skin was smooth as polished river stones. “What does it mean?”
K’kaen had also repositioned himself to get a better look at her face. “I didn’t see the first time, so it’s only fair that you do it again.”
Her cheeks darkened to an unexpected shade of red as she cast her eyes to the far side of the room. Then, as if on a reflex, her eyes swiveled around in their sockets again. “I won’t do it again,” she mumbled as she backed away from him, breaking the contact.
“Are you sure? I want to see it again.” K’kaen’s tail lifted in a combination of fascination and amusement. “Are you going to at least tell us what it means? I can always look on S’samph’s dusty old datapad if you don’t want to.”
She laughed then. “It’s a sign of annoyance. I’m too old to be doing it though. Usually, human adolescents do it when their parents try to tell them what to do.”
“Better an adolescent than agrouchy old bag of scales like S’samph.”
Eleri’s smile widened and she removed her gloves. “Make sure he takes the painkillers on schedule. Not just when he is in too much pain to move.”
“You got it.” K’kaen made a rude gesture in S’samph’s direction with his tail. S’samph kept his response under the surface. He didn’t want to get into verbal sparing with his idiot friend while Eleri was still there.
“I’m trusting you to make sure he takes it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.” K’kaen’s tail twitched in obvious amusement.
“I’ll be checking back in tomorrow.” Eleri gathered up her supplies and started out the door. “Don’t be a hero S’samph. Take the medication, please. Oh, and no mixing it with alcohol, it’ll amplify the side-effects.”
“I’ll do as you ask,” he responded. Part of him bristled at the idea of taking painkillers when he wasn’t incapacitated by pain, but if it was important to Eleri he would manage somehow. Not to mention, avoiding K’kaen’s inevitable harassment was an additional incentive. K’kaen walked her outside, helping her haul the medkit down the path as far as she would let him. Really, he should be the one helping her, but his own inattention left him too injured to do anything useful for her. S’samph’s mood soured as he contemplated his own uselessness.
When K’kaen returned, S’samph noticed an unusual happiness about his friend. It irked him to no end that K’kaen had been the one to escort Eleri from his nest. He challenged his body to recover as quickly as possible so that he could be the one to capture all the valuable moments with her.
“You’re in a good mood,” S’samph hissed.
K’kaen’s frill lifted in annoyance at his tone. “I like your mate. She reminds me of K’taya.”
“K’taya huh?” S’samph grunted and K’kaen rewarded him by chucking a vial of painkillers at his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard K’kaen speak his clutch sister’s name aloud.
“You don’t know how lucky you are that your sister survived.”
“If you want S’kasia you can have her. She might disavow me if I don’t manage to win Eleri’s affections.”
“You can start by taking your medications without making me force feed you.” K’kaen gestured to the vial he’d thrown. S’samph shook the vial of medication per Eleri’s instructions, eyed it dubiously, and then removed the lid to swallow it down. He tried not to shudder from the overwhelming sweetness of the concoction.
“Let her know I did as she instructed.”
K’kaen’s frill rippled. “Want to add it to your tab of favors? I’m going to need an entire datapad to keep track of them soon.”
“Are you forgetting all the times I got you out of trouble on Latilla?”
